University of Virginia Library

1. PART FIRST.

Some years since, when I was in the practice of
the law, one morning, just after I had entered my
office—I was then an invalid on two crutches, and
not a very early riser, so what clients I had, were
often there before me—some few moments after I
had ensconced myself in my chair with my crutches
before me, like monitors of mortality, I heard a
timid rap at my door. Notwithstanding I called
out in a loud voice, “Come in,” the visitor, though
the rap was not repeated after I spoke, still hung
back. With feelings of impatience and pain, I
arose, adjusted my crutches under my arms, and
muttering, not inaudibly, my discontent, I hobbled
to the door and jerked it open.

The moment the visitor was presented to my
vision, I felt angry with myself for what I had
done; and the feeling was not relieved, when a
meek and grief-subdued voice said—

“I am very sorry to disturb you, sir.”

“No,” said I politely, for it was a young and
beautiful woman, or rather girl, of certainly not
more than sixteen, who stood before me, “I am
sorry that you should have waited so long. Come
in; I am lame as you see, Miss, and could not
sooner get to the door.”

Adjusting her shawl, which was pinned closely
up to her neck, as she passed the threshold, she
entered, and at my request, but not until I had
myself resumed my seat, took a chair. I observed
it was a fine morning, to which she made no reply,
for she was evidently abstracted, or rather embarrassed,
not knowing how to open the purpose of
her visit.

The few moments we sat in silence, I occupied
in observing her. She had, I thought, arrayed
herself in her best clothes, anxious by so doing to
make a respectable appearance before her lawyer,
and thereby convince him that if she could not at
present compass his fee, he could have no doubt of
it eventually; though it was also apparent to me
that, in the flurry of mind attendant upon her visit
and its consequence, she had not thought at all
of adding to her personal attractions by so doing.
That consideration, not often absent from a
woman's mind, had by some absorbing event been
banished from hers. She wore a black-silk gown,

the better days of which had gone, perhaps, with
the wearer's.

Her timid step had not prevented my seeing a
remarkably delicate foot, encased in a morocco
shoe much worn and patched, evidently by an unskilful
hand—I thought her own. And though
when she took a seat, she folded her arms closely
up under her shawl, which was a small one, of red
merino, and, as I have said, pinned closely to her
neck, it did not prevent my observing that her
hand, though small, was gloveless, and that a ring
—I thought an ominous-looking ring—we catch
fancies we know not why or wherefore—begirt one
of her fingers. In fact, when she first placed her
hands under the shawl, she turned the ring upon
her finger, maybe unconsciously.

On her head she wore a calash bonnet; and as I
again interrupted the silence by asking, “Is it the
law you seek so early, Miss?” she drew her hand
from beneath her shawl, and removing her bonnet
partly from her face so as to answer me, she revealed
as fair and as fascinating features as I ever
remember to have seen. Her hair was parted
carelessly back over a snowy forehead, beneath
which, lustrous eyes, black as death and almost as
melancholy, looked forth from the shadow of a
weeping willow-like lash. A faint attempt to smile
at my question discovered beautiful teeth, and I
thought, as she said the simple “yes, sir,” that

there must be expression in every movement of
her lip.

Observe, I was an invalid, full, at this very moment,
of the selfishness of my own pains and
aches, which, though not of the heart, and it would
be difficult to convince a sick man that those of
the body are not greater, were notwithstanding
forgotten at once in my interest in my visitor.

“This is Mr. Trimble?” asked she, glancing at
my crutches, as if by those appendages she had
heard me described.

“That is my name,” I replied.

“You have heard of Brown, who is now in—in
jail, sir,” she continued.

“Brown, the counterfeiter, who has been arrested
for a theft,” I asked.

“Yes, sir.”

“I have repeatedly heard of him, though I have
never seen him.”

“He told me to say, sir, wouldn't you go to
jail, and see him about his case?”

Brown's case, from what I had heard of it, was
a desperate one. Not knowing in what relation
the poor girl might stand to him, I shrank from
saying so, though I feared it would be useless for
me to appear for him: I therefore asked her—

“Are you his sister?”

“No, sir.”

“His wife?”

“No, sir, we are cousins like, and I live with
his mother.”

“Ay, is your name Brown?”

“No, sir, my name is Mason—Sarah Mason.”

“Where's Mrs. Brown, Miss Sarah?” I asked.

“She's very sick, sir; I hurried away just as
she got to sleep, after morning; I have walked by
here very often, and I thought, sir, you might
have business out, and not be here to-day—do go
and see him, sir.”

“Why, Sarah, to speak plainly to you, I am
satisfied I can be of no service to him; he is a notorious
character, and there have been so many
outrageous offences lately committed, that if the
case is a strong one, there will be little hope for
the prisoner; and Brown's case, I understand, is
very strong. I am told, that after they had caught
him in the woods, as they were bringing him to
the city, he confessed it.”

“My! my! did he, sir;” exclaimed Sarah, starting
from her seat and resuming it as quickly.

“Yes, I think I overheard one of the constables
say so. There are no grounds whatever in the
case for me to defend him upon. I can do nothing
for him, and should get nothing for it if I did.”

I said this without meaning any hint to Sarah;
but she took it as such, and replied—

“I have some little money, sir, only a few dollars
now,” and she turned herself aside so as with

delicacy to take it from her bosom, “but I shall have
some more soon; I had some owing to me for some
fancy work, but, when I went for it yesterday, to
come and see you, they told me the storekeeper
had failed, and I've lost it.”

As she spoke, she held the money in her hand,
which she rested in her lap, in a manner that implied
she wished to offer it to me, but feared the
sum would be too small, and a blush—it was that
of shame at her bitter poverty—reddened her forehead.
I could not but be struck with her manner;
and as I looked at her without speaking or attempting
to take the money, she said, after a moment's
pause —

“It's all I have now, sir; but, indeed, I shall
have more soon.”

“No, no, keep it, I do not want it,” said I,
smiling. Instantly the thought seemed to occur to
her, that I would not accept the money from a
doubt of its genuineness, as Brown might have
given it to her, and she said—

“Indeed, sir, it is good money. Mr. Judah,
who keeps the clothing-store, gave it to me last
night. You may ask him, sir, if you don't believe
it.”

“Don't believe you! Surely I believe you.
Brown must be a greater scoundrel than even the
public take him for, if he could involve you in the
consequences of his guilt.”

“Sir, sir—indeed, he never gave me any bad
money to pass. I was accused of it; but, indeed,
I never passed a single cent that I thought was
bad.”

“Well, Sarah, keep the money; do not for your
own sake, on any consideration, pass any bad
money; go first and ask some one who knows
whether any money you have is good, and keep
that.”

“But, sir, will you see him?” asked she imploringly.

“Yes, I will, and because you wish it; I cannot
go this morning, I shall be engaged. This afternoon
I have some business at the court-house, and
I will, on leaving there, step over to the jail.”

“Please, sir, to tell him,” she said, hesitatingly,
“that they won't let me come in to see him often.
I was there yesterday, but they wouldn't let me
in. On Sunday they said they would—not till
Sunday. Please, sir, tell him that I will come
then.”

“I will, Sarah,” I replied; “and if you will be
at the jail at two o'clock this afternoon, I will contrive
to have you see Brown.”

She thanked me, repeated the words “at two
o'clock,” and again pressed the money on me,
which I refused, when she withdrew, closing the
door noiselessly after her.

She had not been gone more than half an hour,

when a gentleman entered, who was about purchasing
some property, and who wished me, previously
to closing the bargain, to examine the title.
He wanted it done immediately, and in compliance
with his request I forthwith repaired to the recorder's
office, which stood beside the court-house.

I was then in the practice of the law in Cincinnati.
My office was two doors from the corner of
Main street, in Front, opposite the river, where I
combined the double duties of editor of a daily
paper and lawyer. From my office to the court-house
was, as the common people say, a “measured
mile;” and nothing but the certainty of the immediate
payment of my fee, in the then condition of
my arms and health versus pocket (the pocket carried
the day, and it is only in such cases that
empty pockets succeed), nothing but the consideration
in the premises induced me to take up my
crutches, and walk to the court-house. After I
had examined the title, I determined, as it would
save me a walk in the afternoon, to step over to
the jail, which was only a square or so off, and see
Brown. I did so, and at the gate of the jail found,
seated on a stone by the wayside, Sarah Mason,
who had instantly repaired thither from my office,
resolved to wait my coming, not knowing, as she
told me, but what I might be there before two.

I entered the jailer's room, in which he received
constables, visitors, knaves, previous to locking

them up, lawyers, &c., and handing a chair to
Sarah, desired him to bring Brown out in the jail
yard, that I might speak with him. While he was
unlocking the grated door of the room in which
Brown with many other criminals was confined,
several of them, who were also clients of mine,
called me by name, and made towards the door,
with the wish each of speaking to me about his own
case, perhaps for the fifteenth time. As soon as
Brown heard my name, he called out—

“Stop! it's to see me Mr. Trimble has come;
here, Jawbone Dick, fix that bit of a blanket round
them rusty leg-irons, and let me shuffle out.
Mr. Trimble came to see me.” Controlled by his
manner—for he was a master spirit among them, as
I afterwards learned—they shrank back, while
Jawbone Dick, a huge negro, fixed the leg-irons,
and Brown came forth.

He had a muscular iron form of fine proportions,
though of short stature. His face was intellectual,
with a high but retreating forehead, and a
quick, bold eye. His mouth was very large, displaying
fully, when he laughed, his jaw-teeth;
but it was not ill-shaped, and had the expression
of great firmness, when in repose, with that of
archness and insinuation, generally, when speaking.
He gazed on me steadily for an instant, after he
had passed the threshold of the door into the passage,
as if he would understand my character before

he spoke. He then saluted me respectfully,
and led the way into the backyard of the jail,
which is surrounded by a large wall, to prevent the
escape of the prisoners, who, at stated periods, are
suffered to be out there for the sake of their
health, and while their rooms are undergoing the
operations of brooms and water. Kicking, as well
as his fetters would allow him, a keg that stood by
the outer door into the middle of the yard, Brown
observed—

“Squire, it will do you for a seat, for you and
I don't like to talk too near to the wall; the proverb
says, that `stone walls have ears,' and those
about us have heard so many rascally confessions
from the knaves they have inclosed, that I don't
like to intrust them with even an innocent man's
story; 'twould be the first time they've heard such
a one, and they'd misrepresent it into guilt.”

The jailer laughed as he turned to leave us, and
said—

“Brown, you ought to have thought of that
when the chaps nabbed you, for you told them the
story, and they not only have ears but tongues.”

“Hang them, they gave me liquor,” exclaimed
Brown, as a fierce expression darkened his face.
“I don't think a drunken man's confession should
be taken, extorted or not.”

As the jailer turned to lock up the yard, with
the remark to me of, “Squire, you can rap when

you have got through,” I told him that it would
save some trouble to him if he would let the girl in
his room, who was a relation of Brown's, see him
now. After a slight hesitancy he called her, observing
it was not exactly according to rule.

“It's Sarah, I suppose,” said Brown, taking a
station by my side with folded arms, and giving a
slight nod of recognition to the girl, as in obedience
to the jailer's call she entered the yard. “You'd
better stand there, Sarah,” he said to her, “till
Mr. Trimble gets through with me. It's no use
for her to hear our talk; plague take all witnesses,
anyhow.”

Eyeing me again with a searching expression,
Brown, as if he had at last made his mind up to
the matter, said, “I believe I'll tell you all, Squire;
I did the thing.”

“Yes, Brown, I knew you did,” I replied; “the
misfortune is you told it to the officers.”

“Yes, that's a fact. But may be you can lead
the witnesses on the wrong scent if you know just
how things are, could'nt you?” I nodded, and he
continued. “I boasted when they got me, considerable;
but the fact is, that I got the money.
I was in the Exchange on the landing, where I
saw a countryman seated, who looked to me as if
he had money. I contrived to get into conversation
with him, and asked him to drink with me;
he did so, and I plied him pretty strong. The

liquor warmed him at last, and he asked me to
drink with him; I consented, and when he came
to pay his bill he had no change, and had to dive
into a cunning side-pocket, in the lining of his
waistcoat, to get out a bill, though he turned his
back round and was pretty cautious. I saw he had
a good deal of money. I got him boozy, and when
he left I dogged him. He was in to market, and
had his wagon on the landing not far from the Exchange.
He slept in it. He not only buttoned
his vest tight up, but his overcoat tight over that,
and laid down on the side where he hid away his
rhino. Notwithstanding this,” continued Brown,
and he laughed at the remembrance of his own ingenuity,
“I contrived to make him turn over in
his sleep, and cut clean out through overcoat and
all, got his pocket, with its contents, three hundred
dollars. I had spent all my money at night with
him. In the morning my nerves wanted bracing,
and what must I do but spend some of his money
for grog and breakfast. The countryman immediately
went before a magistrate and described me
as a person whom he suspected. The officers knew
me from his description; and though I had left
Cincinnati and got as far as Cleves, fifteen or eighteen
miles, they followed so close on my track as
to nab me that very day. I had been keeping up
the steam pretty high along the road; they traced
me in that way, and full of folly and the devil,
for the sake of talking and keeping off the horrors,
I made my brags, and told all. I suppose my case
is desperate.”

I told him that I thought it was.

“When I think of my old mother!” exclaimed
he, passing his hand rapidly across his brow; he
then beckoned Sarah to him, and I walked to the
farther end of the yard so as not to be a listener.
Their colloquy was interrupted by the jailer coming
to the door. When I left him, Sarah followed me
out; and, after requesting me to call and see him
again, she took a direction different from mine, and
I went to my office.

The grand-jury, of course, had no difficulty in
finding a bill against Brown, and the day of his
trial soon came. The countryman was the first
witness on the stand. It was amusing, if not edifying,
to observe the smirk of professional pride on
the countenance of the prisoner when the countryman
recounted how he carefully buttoned up his
coat over his money and went to sleep on that side,
and awoke on that side, the right one, and found
his pocket cut out with as much ingenuity as a
tailor could have done it. I tried to exclude the
evidence of Brown's confession from the jury on
the ground that it was extorted from him; but that
fact not appearing to the court, they overruled my
objection; and the facts of the case, with many exaggerations,
were narrated to them by the officer

who arrested the prisoner, as his free and voluntary
confession. I had scarcely any grounds of defence
at all. I tried to ridicule the idea of Brown's having
made a confession, and presented the countryman
in an attitude that made him the laughing-stock
of the jury and audience; but, though it was
evident to them that the countryman was a fool, it
was not less apparent, I feared, that Brown was a
knave. I had some idea of an alibi, but that would
have been carrying matters too far. I, however,
proved his good character by several witnesses.
Alas! the prosecuting attorney showed that he was
an old offender, who had been more than once a
guest of the State's between the walls of the penitentiary.
The prosecuting attorney, in fact, in his
opening address to the court and jury, attacked
Brown in the sternest language he could use. He
represented him as the violator of every sound tie;
and as hurrying his mother's gray hairs to the
grave. At this last charge the prisoner winced.
I saw the lightning of his ire against the prosecutor
flash through the tears of guilt and contrition.
When I arose to address the jury in reply, Brown
called me to him and said—

“Mr. Trimble, you know all about my case—
you know I am guilty; but you must get me off if
you can, for my old mother's sake. Plead for me
as if you were pleading for the apostles—for the
Saviour of mankind.”

This was a strong expression to convey to me
the idea that I must speak and act to the jury as
if I held him in my own heart guiltless, was it not?

Poor Sarah was a tearful witness of his trial.
She was spared, however, being present when the
verdict was rendered. The jury retired about dark,
with the agreement between myself and the prosecutor
that they might bring in a sealed verdict. I
told Sarah, for the sake of her feelings, before the
court adjourned, that they would not meet the
next morning before ten o'clock. They met at
nine, and before she got there, their verdict of
guilty was recorded against the prisoner.

As they were taking Brown to jail, he asked me
to step over and see him, saying that he had a fee
for me. I had been unable to get from him more
than a promise to pay before his trial. I, of course,
gave that up as fruitless, and appeared for him on
Sarah's account, not on his own, or with any hope
of acquitting him. I therefore was surprised at
his remark, and followed him to the jail. He was
placed in a cell by himself—the rule after conviction—and
I went in with him at his request, and
we were left alone.

“Squire,” said he, with more emotion than I
thought him capable of, “I don't care so much for
myself; I could stand it; I am almost guilt hardened—but
when I think of my mother—O God!
—and Sarah, she has been as true to me as if I

were an angel instead of a devil; but she wasn't
in court to-day?”

“No,” said I; “I told her that court would not
sit until ten o'clock. I saw how deeply she was
interested, and I saved her the shock of hearing
your guilt pronounced in open court.”

“Blast that prosecuting attorney,” exclaimed
Brown, gnashing his teeth, “why need he go out
of the case to abuse me about my mother, before
Sarah. I'd like to catch him in the middle of the
Ohio, swimming, some dark night; if he didn't go
to the bottom and stay there, it would be because
I couldn't keep him down. But, Squire, about
that fee—you trusted me, and as you are the first
lawyer that ever did, I'll show you that I am for
once worthy of confidence. Over the Licking
River, a quarter of a mile up on the Covington side
—you know, Squire, the Licking is the river right
opposite to Cincinnati, in Kentucky—well, over
that river, a quarter of a mile up, you will see,
about fifteen feet from the bank, a large tree standing
by itself, with a large hole on the east side of
it. Run your hand up that hole, and you will take
hold of a black bottle, corked tight. Break it open;
in it you will find fifteen hundred dollars—five
hundred of it is counterfeit—the rest is good.
Squire, it is your fee. Your character and countenance
is good enough to pass the whole of it.”

I bowed to the compliment which Brown paid

my “character and countenance” at the expense
of my morals, and said, “You are not hoaxing me,
I hope.”

“I am not in that mood, Squire,” replied the
convict, and asking me for my pencil, he drew on
the wall a rough map of the locality of the river
and tree, and repeated earnestly the assertion that
he himself, in the hollow of the tree, had hid the
bottle. I left him, rubbing the marks of his map
from the wall, determined at the first opportunity
to make a visit to the spot. The next day my
professional duties called me on a visit to another
prisoner in the jail, when Brown asked me, through
the little loophole of his door, if I had got that yet.

“No, Brown,” I replied, “I have not had time
to go there.”

“Then, Squire,” he exclaimed, “you are in as
bad a fix as I am, and the thing's out.”

“How so?” I asked; I began to suspect that
he thought I had been after the money, and that
he was forming some excuse for my not finding
what he knew was not there.

“You see me, Squire, without a coat; my hat's
gone too. Job Fowler, the scoundrel—he knows
about that bottle—he was taken out of the jail
yesterday to be tried, just as they brought me in.
I thought, though my respectable clothes hadn't
done me any good, they might be of service to him,
as his case wasn't strong, and every little helps out

in such cases, as they help the other way when the
thing's dark; so I lent them to him. He was
found not guilty, and he walked off with my wardrobe.
So the jury, hang them, aided and abetted
him in committing a felony in the very act of
acquitting him for one; and by this time he's got
that money. Never mind, we shall be the State's
guests together yet, in her palace at Columbus.”

What Brown told me in regard to the bottle and
Job Fowler, was indeed true.

Job was acquitted in Brown's clothes, and walked
off in them, and wended instantly to the tree beside
the Licking, where he found the bottle, which he
rifled of its contents without the trouble of uncorking
it. Mistaking the bad money for the good, he
returned instantly to Cincinnati, and attempted to
pass some of it. The man to whom he offered it
happened to be in the court-house, a spectator of
his trial. His suspicions were aroused. He had
Mr. Job arrested, and on him was found the fifteen
hundred dollars. A thousand dollars of it was
good, but I got none of it; for the gentleman from
whom Brown and Fowler together had stolen it
was found.

The very day that Brown was convicted, and Job
acquitted in the former's clothes, he was arrested
for passing counterfeit money. A bill was found
against him that morning. He was tried that
afternoon and convicted, and the day after, he and

Brown, handcuffed together, were conveyed to the
penitentiary.